Summer 2014 | 2014 Sukkahville Competition Entry | Advisor: Mark Anderson
Collaborators: Hsiu-Wei Chang, Hsin-Yu Chen, I-Ting Tina Lee and Baxter Smith
“Sukkahville is an international design competition that challenges entrants to re-imagine the Sukkah. A Sukkah is a temporary structure built during the Jewish festival of Sukkot to commemorate the 40 years that Jews spent wandering the desert. It is described as a symbolic wilderness shelter, symbolizing the frailty and transience of life. Proposing an innovative Sukkah design that balances the dichotomies of new/old, open/closed, temporary/permanent is the challenge inherent in this competition.”
The SUKKAH NEST grows from a base created by overlapping bamboo poles, giving the nest a ground from which to reach up to the sky. As it reaches it turns towards the sun, mimicking the blooming sunflower. Bundles of bamboo take over as the vertical structural of the nest to create this growing movement. The resulting form is wrapped in a skin of split bamboo, allowing light, air, and water to be absorbed into the nest. The second floor is made up of a dense network of poles creating a shelter under which people gather and dine, and for dry food to hang. The ground floor is made up of a denser system of poles, acting as a performance stage for gathering audiences to view and join in the activities of Sukkot.
